


Speak its Name

by Macadamanaity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-29
Updated: 2009-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-03 23:52:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macadamanaity/pseuds/Macadamanaity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He was seated at the table and used no amplification for his voice, but BJ would know it anywhere, anytime, with any number of bombs dropping around them."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speak its Name

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to apatheia_jane and minttown1 for the deeply awesome beta-ing.
> 
> This is, as my fics so often are, mostly likethesun2's fault. She requested either Sidney or BJ fic (meaning, I think either-or, and Hawkeye) and somehow my brain said, 'Sidney/BJ'? Awesome idea, dude! 'No, no!' I told it. 'That's not what we meant!' 'Mwahahaha you are a slave to my cracky ideas!' it laughed back at me. Thus, this fic was born. And then canpin drew me a picture of Sidney begging for fic on facebook. This is the result.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,”

Had anyone been watching, it would have seemed that BJ near gave himself whiplash turning toward the clear voice spilling out the slightly-ajar door of the conference room, but Bill and Robert didn’t notice the older doctor’s stop as they walked on, enthusiastically trading stories of the trenches—of medical school, that was—comparing harsh professors and harsher hangovers.

There was no sign outside the door, indicating the lecture or lecturer. Without hesitation, he stuck his head into the very small room. There were only a handful of individuals in the audience and fewer still were taking notes. The speaker glanced up from his speech. He was seated at the table and used no amplification for his voice, but BJ would know it anywhere, anytime, with any number of bombs dropping around them.

He pulled his still-wiry body though the half-open doorway and sat unobtrusively in a chair immediately to his left.

His entrance had been silent but still the entire room turned to look at him. Some already wore open expressions of outrage and others smirked secretly at each other. The man at the head of the room winked at him and then cleared his voice pointedly. They all turned their focus back to him and with a smile and a glance, he kept it.

Sidney Freedman spoke of the work of Alfred Kinsey of which, of course, they all knew. Who didn’t? He also spoke of the 1957 study, which had less notoriety. He then spoke passionately about some representative cases he’d had in the years since his service (where such cases would not have come to him), some attempted suicides, some forced into therapy under duress, and some confused individuals who had discovered these things about themselves during the course of treatment.

“This,” Sidney said, “is not an illness.” Three men and one woman walked out of the room, past BJ, without a look behind them.

“Treatment,” Sidney continued, “will cause illness.” One more.

He waited. Met BJ’s eyes. Continued his lecture to the remaining members of his audience, who sat stone still, as if they were afraid to breath noticeably. No one asked questions after he finished. The applause was muted, but real.

BJ tipped an imaginary hat, as he left, to Sidney who had been approached by a tall, dark-haired man who appeared to know him and had struck up what seemed to be a friendly conversation. Sidney nodded back but continued listening.

Seventeen years with only smatterings of communication, but anyone who knew the 4077th would recognize the body language for ‘meet you at the officers club.’

BJ meandered over to the bar adjacent to the hotel hosting the conference, chose a booth in the back where it was dark and quiet, and ordered two scotches, neat. The drinks arrived merely moments before the curly-haired man. Sidney placed his briefcase on the bench, between him and the wall. He sat, took a deep, slow breath in and out, took one sip of his drink, and then looked up into BJ’s eyes.

BJ smiled, and hoped it reflected the full-body hug he wanted to give the smaller man if they weren’t where they were, surrounded by the people who were there after Sidney had said what he had said. Sidney twitched his lips as if to acknowledge the set up in which the lack of such a hug did not stifle their reunion.

“Sid, it’s great to see you again.” BJ started, both hands on the table, posture open and easy.

“And yourself, BJ, though somewhat unexpected—this is hardly the conference for surgeons.”

“It’s true,” BJ admitted with a smile, “But I do more administrative work at the hospital now and it’s good to know whether the doctors under me are keeping up with their respective fields. At least, that’s my cover story.” He grinned conspiratorially and Sidney echoed, possibly out of habit from his work in gaining the trust of his patients or perhaps in genuine empathy. “The truth is that with Peg out of town on business and Erin and Danny moved out and in college now, the house felt a bit empty, so I jumped at the all-expense paid trip. Sure, it’s no Tokyo, but it’ll do.”

“Indeed!” Sidney finished his drink and waved the waitress over for another. When she had cleared his empty glass he added, “And we’re not all that far from Boston, either.”

BJ nodded enthusiastically.

“Exactly. I’m ducking out early tomorrow and taking my rental car over there. He’s taking this divorce a little harder, I think. He didn’t even attempt to convince anyone at the practice that he should be here, although I told him I’d be coming.” Sidney raised one eyebrow at BJ’s lack of dissemblance. BJ shrugged in return. “Maybe if _you_ had asked him.”

Sidney didn’t know what to say to that and shrugged too, perhaps a little more subtly. The waitress came back with the next round. BJ frowned and swirled his first drink for a few moments before speaking,

“Sid, can I ask you a question?” Sidney took a long pull from his drink—the kind you had to take when drinking the swill that came from the still, so that you’d ingest as much of it as possible before your body’s good sense refused to let you pour in any more poison. He put the glass down. Waited.

“Does, does he still talk to you? I mean, regularly?”

Surprised at _this_ question and confused, Sidney answered,

“No, not really. We catch up in letters and through any of the others we come across – you know how it is.” BJ was nodding his agreement. “But as far as I know, you’re still his confidence man, Captain Hunnicutt.” His tone managed to make the joke out of what should have been one in actuality and got a small laugh as a reward.

“Yeah.” Pause. “I guess I hoped that when we weren’t talking, after some stupid fight or when I’m overwhelmed with work or the kids, that he’s leaning on someone else who might have a chance of understanding. I just worry, you know?” BJ’s glass was suddenly empty as well, but he made no signal to have it refilled.

“I know.” Sidney’s tones had slipped into familiar cadences by this point, whether he willed it or not. “But you can’t be his keeper, BJ.”

BJ smiled wanly, looking beyond the back of the booth behind the psychiatrist.

“Mostly, I haven’t been. And look where that’s got him. And me! Maybe I should…” he trailed off. Suddenly he focused back on Sidney, who was watching him intently and with _something_ in his gaze that BJ understood but couldn’t articulate. BJ ran his hand through what was left of his hair and visibly shook off his seriousness.

“Sorry, Sid. Didn’t mean to go all doctor-patient on you. Tell me about what’s been happening with you! How’s your kid? Your family? Your work?” The sudden shift from inward to outward-looking made BJ less careful with his words than he previously had been with his actions.

Sidney smiled a slow smile.

“No need to apologize. I hope I’m sorting out you four oh seven seven lunatics until my last breath. Then I can be sure I’ll never have a dull day to come. And my family is well. My ex-wife and son are in New Jersey, so I still see them with some regularity. She’s taking care of her mother, and when he comes back from Rutgers on vacation—he’s almost got his masters in theoretical physics, can you believe it—he takes turns visiting us. It’s all absurdly civil. As for my work,” he gestured with his head slightly back toward the hotel with a grimace, “you saw for yourself the sort of overwhelming reception I’ve been getting.”

“It’s good work, Sidney. Important.” BJ was quietly insistent but to his disappointment the man shook is head, denying it.

“None of this is new or groundbreaking. Evelyn Hooker’s been all over this for years, and with more rigorous research behind her. Everyone’s heard it before and they’ve picked sides. Back there I was preaching to the converted.” He sounded as bitter as BJ had ever heard him.

BJ sat back in his wooden seat, considering the man sitting opposite to him and what to say in response. Sidney tucked into his third drink, raising the glass in a mock-toast to nothing in particular.

A few minutes passed.

“Sidney.” He said the name loud and clear, commanding attention with an intensity he rarely chose to utilize to his advantage, preferring the attention be dispersed to those around him, leaving him be.

“Sid, what you’re doing. What that was. You didn’t convince anyone of anything, probably, that’s true. But you’re forcing people to think about it. You’re making them think about it more frequently. You’re making it more commonplace to hear about it. It’s… less unspoken now, I think. That’s good. That’s what’s important. The rest will come, will fall in place, after that’s accomplished.” He paused, his tone changing to slightly playful. “Don’t make me tell you that you can’t save everyone.”

Sidney stared at the surgeon, silently and intently. He said nothing, for once.

BJ took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He continued, “I never thought that, you know. That it was an illness. I'm not far from San Francisco—I mean, you can’t think that and exist there happily! Not anymore. But, for the longest time, I still thought it was a flaw. And you know, you can’t hate someone for a character flaw. It’s what I … love about people, actually. At least, these days. More than ever, after the war. The more flaws, imperfections, absurdities, the better.”

Sidney didn’t say it, but BJ saw the name written on his expression as clearly as if he had.

Before he could continue a voice was thrown from the front of the bar in their direction.

“Dr. Hunnicutt!”

The two younger coworkers strode over from the bar, where they had apparently been sitting for some time, judging by the slight sway of their walk. BJ turned up one corner of his mouth and rolled his eyes towards Sidney, who had frozen at BJ’s last name and had lost all visible affect.

“So this is where you disappeared to! One minute you were behind us and the next…” The taller one trailed off, taking a long pull from his beer. BJ smiled unapologetically.

“Sorry guys, I ran into a good friend of mine from the war. Doctors Robert Miller and William Rosenblum, meet Dr. Sidney Freedman. Sid, meet some of my best minions.”

“Dr. Freedman,” they dutifully echoed, their speech a little too precise, presumably to cover their inebriation in front of the older doctors.

“Doctors,” Sidney nodded, shake each of their hands, a bit too stiffly.

Miller regained his lack of decorum first, sitting himself next to BJ oblivious to his lack of invitation. His friend rolled his eyes first, and then mirrored him, sitting next to Sidney, grinning.

“Freedman. Didn’t I see your name on the speakers list?”

Sidney met BJ’s gaze, blinked once, slowly, and then nodded noncommittally. BJ frowned at what he saw in Sidney’s eyes and took control of the conversation, submitting, “Sid’s a top-notch shrink. Back in Korea, he even had the honor of treating Jesus Christ!”

Sidney smiled thankfully.

“Takes a Jew to know one!” he joked, winking at Rosenblum, who began giggling in a completely undignified manner, setting off Miller.

After that it was requests for stories of their escapades during the war, all of which were automatic for both veterans, and sanitized for public consumption. They hadn’t seen each other in years but like with the rest of the gang, they could take turns with sentences and not miss a beat, knowing just how to draw the laughs out of their audience and how to keep the horror at bay for both the listeners and the storytellers. Klinger’s costumes. Potter’s horse. Frank Burns. The still. Tokyo. The swamp. The swamp.

Mid-sentence and mid-drink, Sidney broke off. BJ picked up the rest of the anecdote, but was derailed as Sidney stood up. Rosenblum shifted, to let the doctor past him, and pointed subtly to the hard-to-notice bathroom door in the back corner.

Sidney nodded, mostly at BJ, took his briefcase, and walked out the front door.

BJ, after a moment of stunned silence, signaled for the check, and then dropped some bills on the table, suddenly unable to meet the eyes of his colleagues. He squeezed past Miller, and also made a beeline for the door. By the time he reached the street, however, Sidney was gone.

* * *

Sidney had several messages waiting for him at the front counter of his motel. He spent the next hour and a half returning calls. One to his secretary, who had a scheduling question; another to his son who didn’t ask about his lecture but warned that he’d better be living it up, since the whole _point_ of a conference was to get drunk with people who would laugh with you at bad jokes about your profession; finally, he returned a call to one of the few patients he gave his hotel number to, in case of emergencies. He spoke to her, trying to calm her and talk her down until her husband came home and could take her to one of the other doctors on call.

Afterward, he sprawled out on his bed, exhausted in body and soul. He drifted for a while, refusing to let his mind dwell on the day’s events, what he had walked away from, and why. It wasn’t late, but all he wanted to do was sleep.

He was about half-way there, still in his suit, on top of the tacky, orange, floral-print bed-spread, when there was a knock at the door.

Sidney debated ignoring it—getting up seemed like it would take too much energy—but in the end his curiosity won. He went to the door and peered through the peep-hole.

He saw a far too close up view of a large nose and cheesy mustache.

He opened the door.

“Sid,” BJ pronounced carefully.

“BJ.” Sidney offered in kind, not moving from the entry way. This prompted BJ to roll his eyes, exasperated.

“Can I come in?”

Still expressionless, Sidney paused, and then turned back around into his room, and returned to his sprawl on the bed.

BJ stepped over the threshold, and closed the door behind him. He stood still for a moment, and then walked in, sitting down in the desk chair across from the bed.

“What the hell, Sidney?” He sounded two parts uncertain and one part angry, and the anger Sidney could hear made him want to close his eyes and just sleep the confrontation away, for all he knew that BJ had every right to be at least confused. He took a steadying breath, in and out, and then sat up, turning to face the armoire four feet to the left of his friend.

“Sorry BJ, I imbibed a bit more than I’m used to lately, and needed air.”

BJ narrowed his eyes.

“The air in the taxi back to the smoky hotel was particularly reviving, then?”

Sidney stared on, miserably.

“Sidney, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. As I told you, aside from the brick wall I seem to have hit in my activist work, things couldn’t be going more smoothly in my life.”

“Sid. I know you well enough and I’ve known you long enough to know that something is wrong. I haven’t, however, talked to you enough in the past while to know if it’s just this conference, or this month, or this year that has you in a state. And I _told_ you, what you’ve hit is hardly a brick wall, only a few thick skulls! The more you talk, the more everyone will talk, and you’ll win because you’re _right_.”

Sidney remained silent, and didn’t argue or nod. BJ sighed, and moved to sit next to his friend on the ugly bedspread.

“Remember how I told you in the bar that I used to think it was a flaw?”

Sidney nodded, and BJ gave him a wry smile.

“That was true until almost a year ago, when Danny was traveling around Europe—he had been saving the money from part-time jobs and allowance and family gifts for years to afford it, taking a year off before starting college—with a buddy of his. We found out that he had gotten it in his head that he was going to fly from there to South Korea. See where his old man had been stationed.”

The thought of Korea still existing as a place one goes to voluntarily startled a laugh out of Sidney, who could not tell where this was going. BJ laughed with him.

“As you might imagine, I thought this was ridiculous and Peg was worried it was still dangerous. So, I tried to get a hold of Klinger, hoping that maybe some of Soon-Lee’s family was around and could show the boys around. It turns out they were both in the country visiting and he was happy to oblige, arranging for Danny and Scott to stay with them.

“By all accounts they had a blast, and he took some pictures that just, I don’t know. Bring me back but take away some of the ugliness of the memories? I’m not sure. They’re very powerful. I’m thinking about sending out copies to the gang.”

Sidney murmured that he’d like that, but did not interrupt the story’s flow.

“Well, about a month after, I got a letter in the mail from Danny. Not addressed to both of us. Just me. It was battered and torn the _exact_ same way ours used to be. I always thought it was the war that did that, but evidently it’s just the distance.

“Dan had written the letter from Klinger’s home in Seoul. He started off by telling me that Klinger had, for old time’s sake, met him at the airport in an elaborate dress. He got a huge kick of out that. And he, well, I guess I’ve nearly memorized this part. He said,

_Dad, he had such great things to say about you. I told him you had explained to me that he wore dresses to get out of the army, for a while. He laughed and told me that he had stopped when he got too busy to accessorize properly! Soon-Lee chimed in, asking him what army he was trying to escape these days and they laughed some more. He didn’t seem to mind that we knew that he still wears women’s clothing, sometimes. I figured that meant that you knew too and you’re still friends. I know it’s not the same thing, but it made me and Scott want to tell him something about us too. It’s that we are an us and therefore, I guess, gay. He didn’t even blink, and told us not to worry about telling you._

"And then he told me he loved me and that he’d see me soon.”

Sidney blinked at BJ for a moment, processing. He looked pained.

“He’s quite something, your son.”

“He’s perfect.” BJ’s hard assertion softened with a grin, “Well, not _perfect_. A father’s love isn’t that blind. But that’s not his flaw.”

“He certainly knows in whom to place his trust.”

“Who do you trust in, Sidney?” It was an old trick, turning his statement back on him, and Sidney obviously saw through it, but was too tired to call BJ on it.

He didn’t answer, and BJ nodded, once.

They sat in separate contemplation for some time. This game, too, was familiar to Sidney. He had waited out several hours in total silence, though it was usually only his first sessions with a patient, and that once with Radar.

Eventually, BJ got up from the bed again, and paced in front of the full-length mirror by the dresser. He took a deep breath.

“We’re all a little in love with Hawkeye, Sidney. It’s who he is, and he can’t help it any more than we can.”

Sidney felt like throwing up, like hugging BJ, like sleeping forever, like screaming.

They looked at each other through their reflections.

“Come with me to Boston tomorrow.”

“This isn’t about him!” Sidney finally managed to get out, past the lump in his throat.

BJ turned around and faced him.

“I know, Sid. It’s about you. And this place isn’t doing you any good right now, so come to Boston with me.”

“You said it wasn’t a brick wall.”

“It’s not!” BJ was vehement. “It’s not. But I think there’s enough fear here, that there was enough fear in that room that you could use some distance. Your fear. Their fear. My fear. It’s why your work is so right and so necessary. Come to Boston. I’m sure Hawk would love to hear your speech. And for all his protestations, he’s fearless. About society, and stigma and all that, at least.”

Sidney considered this.

“Were you two…?”

BJ laughed aloud, and sat back down on the bed, still chuckling. Sidney smiled despite himself.

“I can’t believe you just asked me that! And I can’t believe you’re the first one who has!”

Sidney raised an eyebrow, and leaned back onto his elbows. BJ grinned.

“You _know_ Hawkeye defies mere labels. Except that one time he declared he was ‘sex itself,’ I suppose. And I really don’t know how to answer that. We were. We never did. We are. We’re not. I love Peg. I love him. And I’ve loved both of them more than the other and in different ways, at different times. We just _are_.”

Still smiling a bit, Sidney nodded his head, but was unsure what he was expressing with that gesture. Finally:

“Are you going to ask me?”

BJ cocked his head.

“Sidney, I may be a Californian blonde, what little hair I have left, but I’m not oblivious.” He paused. “Do you _want_ me to ask?”

Sidney stared.

“You’re gay.”

Sidney nodded, slowly, once.

“And you don’t have anyone. All of that trouble, none of the fun.”

This time he really did hug BJ, briefly, and then got up to pull himself back together by the dark window.

After a minute, Sidney lay back on to the bed, the crook of his elbow over his eyes, taking the escape he had previously been denied. He felt the bed dip beside him, listened to BJ’s rhythmic breathing for a few minutes, felt the other man’s hand steady on his arm, and then he finally let sleep take him.

* * *

When he awoke, it was only barely light out. He was alone on the bed, still on top of the covers, but he could hear the shower running and saw two large shoes at the foot of the mattress.

He waited, thinking about what to say to his friend when he emerged.

A few minutes later, BJ padded quietly back into the room, clearly assuming Sidney was still asleep. Sidney raised an eyebrow at him, and upon seeing this, BJ grinned and walked much more naturally back to the bed, sitting down.

BJ opened his mouth to speak, but Sidney cut him off.

“I can’t go to Boston with you.”

BJ sighed, shook his head, and then:

“I still think you should. But I get it, I guess. And Hawkeye wants to see you. I talked to him when I woke up. You sleep like a log, you know that?”

“Not recently,” he muttered to himself.

“Well, he said to tell you that if you didn’t come visit now, you’d be out the plane fare to the west coast later, since he’s finally accepting my invitation to head out there to stay.”

Sidney looked to him in surprise and saw nothing but self-satisfaction.

“He got offered a consulting job, this new show based on that movie from sixty-nine. You know. The one that was really about Vietnam?”

Sidney nodded. He had enjoyed the film, and thought the treatment the director had received because of it was a shame. That one scene, though. It was hard to see which parts of it were satire, which were destructive cultural assumptions, and which were just plain absurd for the sake of comedy.

“Anyhow, he gets to offer anecdotes to the writers and gets to read the scripts for medical and historical accuracy. They’re filming it down near L.A., despite it looking nothing like Korea, so he’ll have to commute quite a ways sometimes, but like I said, the house is pretty empty these days.”

He pushed down that burst of what could only be jealousy, hoping it didn’t show on his face as strongly as he felt it.

“He’ll work at the hospital then, I assume.”

“The interns won’t know what hit them! It’s good, though. We all told him that marrying the woman who was effectively boss would be a bad idea, especially considering how well she gets on with Margaret. At least this gives him a good professional out; both of them, really.” BJ’s tone threatened to fade into contemplation.

Sidney interjected, almost desperately, “That’s fantastic, BJ. I guess your trip out here was successful, then.”

BJ looked at him oddly.

“Sidney, I came to the conference to see _you_! You think I stumbled into that room by accident? I saw the list of speakers a month ago! I wanted to surprise you and,” he added sheepishly, “I wasn’t sure if you’d back out of it or not, if you knew I would be listening.” Sidney flushed because he probably would have. BJ waved off his embarrassment and continued, “Being able to see Hawkeye was a bonus, but his decision had nothing to do with my being here. If I had known you were having such a rough time of it, though, you would have heard from me much sooner.”

Sidney kissed him. He hadn’t planned to, and was pretty sure that _he_ was more surprised than BJ, whose eyes had widened slightly but soon narrowed with knowledge and good humor as he brought his left hand to Sidney’s cheek and kissed him back with affection. Shortly thereafter, Sidney allowed himself to begin thinking again and noted the strange sensation of two mustaches rubbing together. He smiled and pulled back.

“It’d never work between us, BJ,” he announced, still smiling, resisting bringing a hand to his mouth.

BJ, bless him, knowing a set-up when he heard it, gave the obligatory, “Oh, and why is that?”

“One of us would have to shave. I’d lose one of my primary sources of gravitas and Hawkeye’d lose one of his primary means to tease you.”

BJ snorted with laughter.

“Oh, I don’t know, Sid. Peg has been on me for years to lose the mustache. Says it makes me look like her father!”

“Ah,” said Sidney with all the solemnity he could muster, under the circumstances, “It would be a shame to deprive her of a way to work out her Electra issues, though.”

They laughed some, and BJ kept his hand on Sidney’s shoulder, tethering him.

“One would think,” offered Sidney eventually, “that after Korea, after watching healthy young men’s minds get destroyed unnecessarily, after putting the pieces of one of my best friends back together, after all of that—that this would be a cakewalk. That I wouldn’t care what they’re thinking, that I could get over my own fear and quell theirs.”

“Not alone.” BJ squeezed his shoulder. “Does your family know?”

Sidney cracked his knuckles.

“They’re not, as you said, ‘oblivious.’ People make obvious assumptions about a divorced man who starts his own campaign to get homosexuality removed from the DSM. My family has been understanding, to a point, but I don’t think they understand that my doing this has almost nothing to do with _me_.”

“But it does, Sid.” BJ smiled kindly. “And not just because you like men, but because you care so much about people in general. Sometimes, you’re too much like Hawkeye.” Sidney sputtered in denial. “You, both of you, will never be happy, I think, until everyone is.”

“If that were true I would have gone crazy in Korea.”

Softly, “What’s wrong with that?”

* * *

“Dr. Freedman!” Sidney turned to see one of BJ’s young doctors approaching him after the final address of the conference, as the crowd began thinning out.

“You can call me Sidney, Dr. Miller, now that your boss isn’t looking over your shoulder.” The man grinned.

“BJ’s not even that formal when we’re in the hospital. Something about the east coast makes him a bit stodgy. I’m Rob, anyway. Look, D- Sidney, I wanted to apologize for yesterday.” Sidney was nakedly surprised.

“I’m afraid it is I who should apologize for leaving so abruptly.”

“No, no. You have nothing to be sorry about. I have friends who were in Nam and I should know better than to prod for too many war stories. It was insensitive. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t. But I thank you for your concern regardless.”

“I’m sure having to deal with backlash from your talk didn’t help either.”

“Backlash? Not this time, I’m afraid. It seemed to go out with a whimper, rather than a bang.” At this Miller’s eyes bugged out.

“You didn’t hear, then?”

“Hear what?”

“After you left. At the evening function. Some guy who was slated to present an achievement award went off on a terrible rant about your talk, and just the whole thing in general.”

The colour threatened to drain from Sidney’s face.

“He got shouted off the stage, though,” Rob continued, oblivious, “That guy over there,” he gestured to the tall, dark-haired man from Sidney’s lecture, three rows over, “led the charge.”

“Did he?”

“Yep! Though, to be fair, I guarantee you BJ would have been three steps ahead of him had he been here.”

Sidney resisted the urge to blush, especially since the young man’s voice held no suspicion or recrimination for his supervisor’s absence, and laughed instead.

“Yes, well, BJ Hunnicutt comes second to few in championing hopeless causes, and somehow succeeding anyway.”

Miller smiled and nodded.

“Too true. In any case, Dr. Freedman, it was a pleasure to have met you, and good luck with your work. If you come out to California, be sure to stop by the hospital and give us an update.”

“Likewise. And I likely will, as I’ve promised BJ I would visit more often.”

The two men shook hands and parted ways.

Sidney turned his attention toward the man who had apparently defended his words and recalled their brief conversation the day before,  
_  
“What a great talk, Dr. Freedman. Really, it was inspiring.”_

“Thank you for taking the time to come hear it. I know there were far more prestigious lecturers speaking at the same time.”

“Pshh. None nearly so captivating, I’m sure.”

“I thank you for the kind words.”

“Look, Doctor, I was wondering if maybe you might like—“

“I’m terribly sorry to cut you short, but I just saw an old friend of mine I haven’t seen in years and I must go catch up with him.”  
  
Sidney had fled to the bar, leaving him mid-gesture.

Now he looked over to that man, who was looking back at him.

And winking.

* * *

  
_Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice. Pull down your pants, and slide on the ice._

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Alfred Kinsey is generally regarded as the father of sexology, and published the Kinsey Reports on male and female sexuality in 1948 and 1953, respectively. Kinsey believed that most people are not exclusively homosexual or heterosexual.
> 
> Evelyn Hooker was a psychologist who, in 1956, presented the results of her study that showed that homosexual and heterosexual men were highly similar in their psychological make-up to the American Psychological Association and published a paper on the topic in 1957.
> 
> The American Psychiatric Association removed 'homosexuality' from its handbook of disorders in 1973.


End file.
